Day 575 - Behind the scenes at ToI's Those We Have Lost project
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.4 • 864 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the coordinator of The Times of Israel's Those We Have Lost project, Amy Spiro, for this special episode in honor of Israel's Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror.
We explain about the genesis of our Those We Have Lost project, and how we aim to tell the stories of individuals slain in Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023. The first entry was written on October 11, 2023, when the number of the murdered was still unclear and funerals were held around the clock.
Today, with 1,100 individual entries covering almost every single person killed by Hamas, our Those We Have Lost project paints a picture of each of their lives and the ongoing ripple effects of their deaths.
Spiro speaks to the challenges she's faced -- including the mundane issue of how to write names in Latin letters -- and where she draws her information from.
The Those We Have Lost project works to ensure that despite the massive scale of the loss, no one is forgotten. On behalf of The Times of Israel, Borschel-Dan urges listeners to visit the project's home page this week and keep the fallen's memories alive.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to What Matters Now, the Times of Israel's weekly podcast drilling into one issue |
| 0:07.9 | of facing Israel and the Jewish world right now. I'm your host, WD. Editor Amanda Borschal-Dahn, |
| 0:13.4 | here today with news editor Amy Spiro. Amy, thank you so much for joining me today. |
| 0:18.0 | Thank you for having me. On October 7, 2023, some 5,000 Hamas-led |
| 0:24.0 | terrorists burst into southern Israel on a rampage that was unprecedented in Israel's history. |
| 0:30.1 | They slaughtered some 1,200 and took about 250 back to Gaza as hostages. On October 11, 2023, the Times of Israel decided to begin a |
| 0:42.7 | memorial project, which we called Those We Have Lost. Amy, Amy Spiro, has been really the spearhead |
| 0:50.3 | of this project, and to date, we have over a thousand posts ready for individuals |
| 0:56.2 | who were killed during this rampage. So, Amy, we are now facing our second Yomazikaron, |
| 1:03.4 | which is Israel's Memorial Day for the Fallen, and it's the second Yomaziron since October 7th. |
| 1:10.5 | And I'm glad to have you here to discuss this project and help people understand exactly what we're doing here. |
| 1:18.7 | So to begin with, to date, how many posts have been written in those we have lost project? |
| 1:25.8 | Thanks, Amanda. |
| 1:26.6 | So at the point of this recording, we have published |
| 1:29.3 | 1,093 posts. So those represent 1194 people, because a number of the posts are couples, families, |
| 1:38.8 | siblings, who we've grouped together. So that's where we stand at this point in terms of the full scope of the project that we've |
| 1:46.9 | gotten to so far. |
| 1:48.2 | So we have 1,093 posts which cover 1,194 people, of which 321 were IDF soldiers and 58 police officers. |
| 1:59.8 | One thing we've been really careful to do is to take all the |
| 2:03.1 | information from publicly available sources. So what are your sources, Amy? Yeah, so when we start |
| 2:10.0 | writing an obituary, you know, we have a name and we're looking for information. So we're |
| 2:14.9 | essentially looking for what's already out there, what the family has said. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.